Anchoring a Terrain: Landscape Beyond Urbanism

Abstract

Is Philadelphia a cohesive and exclusive unit, a separate existence that lends itself to the idea of a city and the essence of urban; or is it an open and dynamic terrain on which people, but also other species and, more broadly, actors, including water, anchor? If by the first reading Philadelphia is seen as an urban entity seeded by William Penn in 1682 with a layout that today is considered the center of its place and its plan, by the second it is seen as a place of multiple anchors. Each anchor generates trajectories that are not necessarily traceable to Penn’s layout. Indeed Penn’s initiative is merely one of many in this terrain, one that has tended to dominate. This paper lays a ground for seeing Philadelphia as the subject of a plural history and a mode of intervening toward the future that is intrinsically resilient, agile and tenacious, qualities that are important in a time of increasing openness, complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty when foresight and control of singular entities like cities are even more elusive than ever before.